"For a time, the humans of Sera knew the illusion of peace... until Emergence Day. At that moment, our people broke free from our subterranean, erupting into the domain of these ground walkers, and wiping out whole cities. We fought and killed the humans on their fine boulevards, in their homes, on their battlefields. And they fought back. In time, their valiant defense was crushed. With billions dead, humans denied their enemy control by destroying their own civilization. They launched devastating attacks on their own territory —sacrificing their own citizens— so that we could not possess it. Such was their loathing and fear of us. Understand what a world must do to survive —what humans must do, and what we must do. But survive we must. Now the humans' long struggle against overwhelming odds approaches the final, desperate stand."

Emergence Day, otherwise known as E-Day, was a swift, full-scale, coordinated and unprecedented, planet-wide assault on the surface of Sera initiated by the Locust Horde. Nearly every single major human city on the surface of Sera was attacked from the subterranean, using both bio-engineered weapons and stolen human technology. All breaches were along the ground line, in what was a campaign of rapid dominance. It was a textbook military invasion. There were massive casualties everywhere the Locust arrived; over a quarter of the total human population died on that very first day. The Locust Horde was able to deploy huge numbers of their forces into all major cities on the surface at once. The Locust rapidly dominated the humans in their massive assault and were able to defeat all organized human resistance for over a year.[4] They had used the spoils of war and victory to gather all available military and civilian technological equipment and resources to use against the COG and the few UIR nations that still existed after the Pendulum Wars.[7][8] The Locust Horde's onslaught and assault continued for a year until the Hammer of Dawn strikes, in which the Hammer of Dawn technology was deployed under the newly elected ChairmanRichard Prescott.[9]

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Around six weeks before Emergence Day, a peace treaty was signed between the Coalition of Ordered Governments and most of the Union of Independent Republics, ending a global seventy-nine year war. A few UIR holdouts were still continuing the fight, but most of Sera was celebrating the end of the war.[10] The Seran population was at rest, where several thousand Gears were given leave and the civilian population celebrated the end of the Pendulum Wars.[11]

Six weeks after the signing of the peace treaty between the COG and the UIR,[11] the Locust Horde attacked all major cities on the surface. This event was called Emergence Day. Emergence Day was the day that the Locust Horde had finally emerged from the underground hollows of Sera; and had launched a surprise, coordinated, full-scale, all-out assault upon the human race.[4] When the Locust emerged, nobody, except for Adam Fenix, had any idea what these creatures were and why they attacked, which made the Locust's attack even more surprising and ominous, and made humans even more afraid of their new enemy.

"These images are from our affiliate in Ephrya, just a few minutes ago... Similar attacks are reported all across the world... Eye witnesses attest these monsters strike from underground, without any warning... COG forces are waging a valiant defense, however... Emergency response services are completely overwhelmed... Some may ask, could this be the end of the world?"

— News reports during Emergence Day

"Please stay calm and stay in your homes... the military... has things under control."

The Locust emerged across Sera and attacked nearly every major city on the surface. Initial reports sent out by the press and forms of other news media on E-Day told the public to remain indoors and remain calm, believing that the authorities and the military had the situation under control. However, no military force across Sera had any situation under control; the Locust dominated the human forces and annihilated everything in their path. As Emergence Day continued to unfold, the Locust began to mercilessly hunt down and butcher civilians in their homes, businesses, and on the streets. The Locust refused to distinguish between men, women and children, and relentlessly pursued everyone they found with an unquenchable blood thirst.[12][4] With the general public being unarmed and with most of the COG armed forces on leave after the Pendulum Wars, the civilians of Sera were almost helpless to defend themselves. In just twenty-six hours, a quarter of the human population was killed, with many cities and towns completely annihilated.[4] Fortunately for the COG, the Locust could not tunnel their way into Jacinto Plateau[4] and the South Islands.

Images of the massacred on the Jannermont highway were shown on news networks across Sera.[13] Later, one of the first cities to have reports of an unknown enemy attacking was Jannermont, where the death toll would reach over 100,000. Reports that Porta Ogari was attacked along with cities in Pelles, Vasgar, Gorasnaya, and Ostri.[14] The Global Communications Network crashed,[15] and the COG Civil Protection Service network also crashed.[citation needed] With such high percentages of casualties, hospitals were quickly overwhelmed and forced to turn away more incoming wounded.[16]

Some COG citizens believed that the Pendulum Wars had started again or that the Gorasni was attacking[17] until Chairman Tomas Dalyell made an announcement that a new and foreign enemy was attacking the surface from the Hollows.[18]

"Citizens, we don’t know what these creatures are, other than the fact that they’re not human. We don’t know where they come from. We don’t know what they want. But they’re tunneling under our cities and emerging to slaughter our people. Our combined forces throughout Sera have been mobilized to with them. I ask you all to remain calm, as you have done through so many years of war. Stay in your homes unless ordered to evacuate, and listen for emergency information on all broadcast stations. That, my fellow citizens, is all I can tell you until the situation becomes clearer."

After the Chairman’s speech, the entire COG military mobilized all of their forces, resources and other assets and sent them to the cities to battle the Locust. The 25th Sherrith Cavalry was called back from leave along with many other units. The COG Army began sending troops into Mattino Junction and other cities while Nordesca was also attacked three days after E-Day.[14] While on the home front, the Chairman ordered the Cougars in Hanover city to continue with the scheduled Thrashball game for a morale boost since Hanover was not attacked.[19] E-Day would eventually end and the Locust Horde would continue advancing across Sera, destroying everything and killing everyone in their path, and it seemed like nothing could stop their devastating rampage. The Locust were so effective in their tunneling and coordinated attacks; they were even able to reach the South Islands.

Less than a month after E-Day, the Minister for Social Welfare Natalya Vreland began to question how the COG was going to be able to deal with the refugees from destroyed cities, who were already putting a strain on resources.[20] A year after E-Day, Chairman Dalyell passed away from a heart attack and Richard Prescott was elected into office. He attempted to unite humanity for a counterstrike against the Locust Horde, but was unable to gain support from the COG member states,[21] forcing him to undertake the single greatest imminent loss of life during the war. Prescott instated the Fortification Act, and gave Serans three days to retreat to Ephyra before he fired the Hammer of Dawn. At great cost to human life and infrastructure, the Locust were driven back by orbital weaponry and chemical warfare, effectively denying assets to the Locust Horde. However, they were not defeated. Over the next decade, the Locust would continue their persistent onslaught against humanity - finally breaching Jacinto Plateau at the East Barricade Academy ten years after Emergence Day, and putting Jacinto under siege 5 years after that. E-Day was such a significant event in the history of mankind that the age old calendar system was abolished in favor of a year marking system that involved counting the years before and after E-Day to mark an event, i.e. B.E. = Before Emergence / A.E. = After Emergence.

↑Gears of War: Jacinto's Remnant - Locust were able to strip all military and technological resources from the COG until one year and one month after E-Day when the Hammer of Dawn counterstrike denied the Locust of all spoils of war